There were two obvious ways this story could end.
Or and this was always the more likely ending, statistically speaking O’Rourke would lose.
Which (spoiler alert!)
HBO
In voice-over, he explains the origin of the campaign.
“Somebody just won an election by defining us as being scared and small and afraid.
So we just what are we going to do?
And out of that conversation came this idea: What if we ran for Senate?”
That’s how we started.
And that’s how we have to continue it."
“I was like, yeah, what the f,” O’Rourke said with a disbelieving shrug.
“I didn’t think it would bethis.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When was the moment you knew this is what you wanted to be your next film?
It wasn’t just about him.
There’s a really sharp contrast between the two of them.
And here is a person trying to bring the human connection back into politics in a really exciting way.
What were the influences that you brought to this?
I was thinking aboutThe War Room, which followed Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.
The biggest inspiration to me is D.A.
Pennebaker’sDon’t Look Back[a documentary about Bob Dylan].
You feel the intimacy of the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject.
I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that D.A.
Pennebaker goes on to make some of our favorite political docs, includingThe War Room.
He has always been my inspiration as a filmmaker.
What was your strategy for shooting this?
We had a really small team.
This is a film about people trying new things, in that Beto was doing this unconventional campaign.
I was trying something new, kind of inspired by them.
I had never used a camera before.
I’d just been fortunate to work with really talented cinematographers, but these moments were so intimate.
The moments were so fragile that it really needed to just be me sometimes.
So I shot some of this film myself, which was really daunting.
No sound, no anything else?
The film is financially and creatively independent from the campaign.
How much of a negotiation was that?
He believes in transparency, and he wanted to really walk the walk on that.
And he is a student of history, and he believes in a document for the record.
We were really on the same page about that.
Did that access change as the campaign went on?
That was a really profound moment for me as a filmmaker, in terms navigating a filmmaker-subject relationship.
What did it feel like foryouin that moment?
It very much felt like the beginning of something, not the end of it.
How did the guys fromPod Save Americaend up as a production partner?
The Crooked Media team has been involved in this film really almost since its inception.
That helped us with some early momentum in funding the film.
They provided some really great creative feedback on some cuts of the film.
Their insight and feedback as we pulled the edit together was really helpful.
We did shoot over 700 hours of footage.
That helped us keep pace with the footage.
But which movie were you making?
The film was nominated for an Academy Award.
By Oct. 1, we had a very rough working cut of the first two-thirds of the film.
For the most part, the story lines of those first two scenarios are very similar.
The growing traction of the campaign.
The energy that blooms behind them.
Are you still shooting with him?
We wrapped on this project.
Obviously there’s a lot of speculation on what he’s going to do next.
I just focus on my job to tell the story of this first breakout campaign.
Running With Betowill premiere May 28 on HBO.
Watch an exclusive clip above.
